So we quite enjoyed the film, which is basically girl meets boy, boy and girl dress in mammal fur costumes based on Shinto marriage attire, girl and boy interrupted during tea ceremony on Japanese whaling ship by surging flood of liquid Vaseline.

A conversation with Mr. Barney is a rather intense experience, however, and is not to be taken neat.

Fortunately, there is no better mixer than the halting, awkward conversation we were having at roughly the same time at the Loews theater on 34th Street.

There, the BEASTIE BOYS were celebrating the premiere of their new film, titled "Awesome" followed by a phrase that we are not allowed to print. The film documents a 2004 concert at Madison Square Garden, at which the Beastie Boys handed out 50 cameras to fans. ADAM YAUCH edited the footage, and this is the result.

After a little talk about the movie, we asked if there were any big projects in the works.

"There's an odd combination of the very contemporary technology being used to locate the whales and what felt like a fairly crude method of catching them, that being the harpoon," Mr. Barney was saying. "The modern Norwegian harpoon that they use seems like a bomb at the end of a rope. It's quite crude."

The Beasties did not seem inclined to elaborate here. We fumbled with our notepad.

"This project took my interest in that material to a different place, and a new place, in terms of thinking about its history, and thinking about its relationship to whale oil, in the sense that whale oil gave energy to the world for quite a while and was replaced by petroleum," said Mr. Barney on the subject of his affinity for petroleum jelly.

"We work on cleaning. Detailing cars," Ad Rock repeated.

All three of the Beasties were wearing rather dapper suits. Ad Rock was wearing a fedora. They stared at us. It was becoming very odd.

JOAN JETT was also there, but we didn't have a chance to talk to her.

Suddenly, Ad Rock said, "You know abortion is illegal now in South Dakota."